Is it possible to extend enum in Java 8?

Question

Just playing and came up with a sweet way to add functionality to enums in Java Enum toString() method with this.

Some further tinkering allowed me to nearly also add a tidy (i.e. not throwing an exception) reverse look-up but there's a problem. It's reporting:

error: valueOf(String) in X cannot implement valueOf(String) in HasValue
public enum X implements PoliteEnum, ReverseLookup {
overriding method is static

Is there a way?

The aim here is to silently add (via an interface implementation with a default method like I added politeName in the linked answer) a lookup method that does the valueOf function without throwing an exception. Is it possible? It is clearly now possible to extend enum - one of my major problems with Java until now.

Here's my failed attempt:

public interface HasName {

    public String name();
}

public interface PoliteEnum extends HasName {

    default String politeName() {
        return name().replace("_", " ");
    }
}

public interface Lookup<P, Q> {

    public Q lookup(P p);
}

public interface HasValue {
    HasValue valueOf(String name);
}

public interface ReverseLookup extends HasValue, Lookup<String, HasValue> {

    @Override
    default HasValue lookup(String from) {
        try {
            return valueOf(from);
        } catch (IllegalArgumentException e) {
            return null;
        }
    }

}

public enum X implements PoliteEnum/* NOT ALLOWED :( , ReverseLookup*/ {

    A_For_Ism, B_For_Mutton, C_Forth_Highlanders;
}

public void test() {
    // Test the politeName
    for (X x : X.values()) {
        System.out.println(x.politeName());
    }
    // ToDo: Test lookup
}

Answer 1

You are over-complicating your design. If you are willing to accept that you can invoke a default method on an instance only, there entire code may look like this:

interface ReverseLookupSupport<E extends Enum<E>> {
    Class<E> getDeclaringClass();
    default E lookup(String name) {
        try {
            return Enum.valueOf(getDeclaringClass(), name);
        } catch(IllegalArgumentException ex) { return null; }
    }
}
enum Test implements ReverseLookupSupport<Test> {
    FOO, BAR
}

You can test it with:

Test foo=Test.FOO;
Test bar=foo.lookup("BAR"), baz=foo.lookup("BAZ");
System.out.println(bar+"  "+baz);

An non-throwing/catching alternative would be:

interface ReverseLookupSupport<E extends Enum<E>> {
    Class<E> getDeclaringClass();
    default Optional<E> lookup(String name) {
        return Stream.of(getDeclaringClass().getEnumConstants())
          .filter(e->e.name().equals(name)).findFirst();
}

to use like:

Test foo=Test.FOO;
Test bar=foo.lookup("BAR").orElse(null), baz=foo.lookup("BAZ").orElse(null);
System.out.println(bar+"  "+baz);

Answer 2

I think I have an answer - it's hacky and uses reflection but seems to fit the brief - i.e. reverse lookup without methods in the enum and without throwing exception.

public interface HasName {

    public String name();
}

public interface PoliteEnum extends HasName {

    default String politeName() {
        return name().replace("_", " ");
    }
}

public interface Lookup<P, Q> {

    public Q lookup(P p);
}

public interface ReverseLookup<T extends Enum<T>> extends Lookup<String, T> {

    @Override
    default T lookup(String s) {
        return (T) useMap(this, s);
    }

}

// Probably do somethiong better than this in the final version.
static final Map<String, Enum> theMap = new HashMap<>();

static Enum useMap(Object o, String s) {
    if (theMap.isEmpty()) {
        try {
            // Yukk!!
            Enum it = (Enum)o;
            Class c = it.getDeclaringClass();
            // Reflect to call the static method.
            Method method = c.getMethod("values");
            // Yukk!!
            Enum[] enums = (Enum[])method.invoke(null);
            // Walk the enums.
            for ( Enum e : enums) {
                theMap.put(e.name(), e);
            }
        } catch (Exception ex) {
            // Ewwww
        }
    }
    return theMap.get(s);
}

public enum X implements PoliteEnum, ReverseLookup<X> {

    A_For_Ism,
    B_For_Mutton,
    C_Forth_Highlanders;
}

public void test() {
    for (X x : X.values()) {
        System.out.println(x.politeName());
    }
    for (X x : X.values()) {
        System.out.println(x.lookup(x.name()));
    }
}

prints

A For Ism
B For Mutton
C Forth Highlanders
A_For_Ism
B_For_Mutton
C_Forth_Highlanders

Added

Inspired by @Holger - this is what I feel is most like what I was looking for:

public interface ReverseLookup<E extends Enum<E>> extends Lookup<String, E> {

  // Map of all classes that have lookups.
  Map<Class, Map<String, Enum>> lookups = new ConcurrentHashMap<>();

  // What I need from the Enum.
  Class<E> getDeclaringClass();

  @Override
  default E lookup(String name) throws InterruptedException, ExecutionException {
    // What class.
    Class<E> c = getDeclaringClass();
    // Get the map.
    final Map<String, Enum> lookup = lookups.computeIfAbsent(c, 
              k -> Stream.of(c.getEnumConstants())
              // Roll each enum into the lookup.
              .collect(Collectors.toMap(Enum::name, Function.identity())));
    // Look it up.
    return c.cast(lookup.get(name));
  }

}

// Use the above interfaces to add to the enum.
public enum X implements PoliteName, ReverseLookup<X> {

    A_For_Ism,
    B_For_Mutton,
    C_Forth_Highlanders;
}

Answer 3

The case is the same as you can not create default toString() in interface. The enum already contains signature for static valueOf(String) method therefore you can not override it.

The enum are compile time constant and because of that it really doubtful that they will be extensible someday.

If you want to get the constant via name you can use this:

public static <E extends Enum<E>> Optional<E> valueFor(Class<E> type, String name) {

       return Arrays.stream(type.getEnumConstants()).filter( x ->  x.name().equals(name)).findFirst();

    }

Answer 4

Here, there's basically two points. Specifically the reason it doesn't compile is 8.4.8.1:

It is a compile-time error if an instance method overrides a static method.

In other words, an enum can't implement HasValue because of the name clash.

Then there's the more general issue we have which is that static methods just cannot be 'overridden'. Since valueOf is a static method inserted by the compiler on the Enum-derived class itself, there's no way to change it. We also can't use interfaces to solve it since they do not have static methods.

In this specific case it's a place where composition can make this kind of thing less repetetive, for example:

public class ValueOfHelper<E extends Enum<E>> {
    private final Map<String, E> map = new HashMap<String, E>();

    public ValueOfHelper(Class<E> cls) {
        for(E e : EnumSet.allOf(cls))
            map.put(e.name(), e);
    }

    public E valueOfOrNull(String name) {
        return map.get(name);
    }
}

public enum Composed {
    A, B, C;

    private static final ValueOfHelper<Composed> HELPER = (
        new ValueOfHelper<Composed>(Composed.class)
    );

    public static Composed valueOfOrNull(String name) {
        return HELPER.valueOfOrNull(name);
    }
}

(Plus, I'd recommend that over catching the exception anyway.)

I realize "you can't do it" is not really a desirable answer but I don't see a way around it due to the static aspect.